OSX on wintel

I have heard rumors about this for a while. Now I just met someone who has an actual beta build of this beast (which I will get a copy of next week). Anyone played with osx on wintel yet? I am curious because as a software developer it would mean maybe I shouldn't waste resources porting stuff over to windoze if osx for intel is right around the corner...

Comments

If OS X for Intel was on the up and coming, you'd still have to port your software to Windows because most of the people switching to a Wintel OS X would be the current Mac users. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

There is no "OSX on Wintel" except for the years-dead Yellow Box project. Apple is a hardware company. They make a profit with their hardware, not software sales. If Apple sold a version of Mac OS X that ran fine on Windows-based PCs, they would be DOA.

starfleetX is dead right with this one. We will not see OS X on Intel (or AMD for that matter) because Apple needs to sell HARDWARE to make money. The only reason Apple can survive in a market of which they only possess approx. 4% is because they make so much money on HARDWARE.

Jobs killed off the Mac clones because even they were eating up Apple's market share. They were supposed to only go after new users, but of course it was all the long time Mac users that went after the clones because they were cheaper and did the same thing as Apple's own hardware. I have a Radius 81/110 sitting on the floor right here, in fact.

If OS X ever becomes available on x86, Apple might as well stop making hardware altogether, because nobody will buy it. They'll go for the clones instead because they're hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars cheaper. And then all Apple is left with to sell is the OS itself. So selling the OS for $130 a pop to 4% of the entire computer market... any bets on how many days it would take them to go bankrupt?

<strong>starfleetX is dead right with this one. We will not see OS X on Intel (or AMD for that matter) because Apple needs to sell HARDWARE to make money.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Even after switching to x86, Apple could still require that you buy their hardware to use OS X. Putting OS X on intel wouldn't be Apple's attempt to become a software-only company (a la M$), it would be their attempt to get away from PPC.

<strong>If OS X ever becomes available on x86, Apple might as well stop making hardware altogether, because nobody will buy it. They'll go for the clones instead because they're hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars cheaper.</strong><hr></blockquote>

This argument kills me. What you are saying is that given the choice, nobody in their right mind would buy an Apple computer. What a ringing endorsement. (As it happens, you are right. That is why 97% of computer buyers do not buy a Mac).

Regarding the ROM chip solution:

[quote] IBM tried that in 1982 with the BIOS for the first PC. Somebody reverse engineered it, made a couple small changes AND won a sour grapes court case many years later. <hr></blockquote>

This happened because the original PC was built with almost entirely off-the-shelf parts and the BIOS was a half-hearted rush job by IBM who needed to scramble something to market. If Apple really was betting the company on such a move, then they would obviously avoid such a mistake, and it wouldn't be hard to do.

Nobody could cobble together a clone of an Intel-based Mac for the same reason that they can't cobble together a clone of a PPC-based Mac now. Apple's OS runs on Apple's motherboards. End of story. Swapping an Intel chip for a PPC makes no difference at all to the "closedness" of the Mac Platform.

IF Apple had Intel-based Macs, then they would automatically be on par performance-wise with Wintel clones. With a level playing field like that, Apple has a much better chance of selling its strengths (design and OS, mostly). I think on such a level playing field, Apple could maintain or increase market share by relasing a shrinkwrapped OS X for Wintel clones.

I wish people would quit declaring this debate "closed" just because they don't like the idea. The debate is far from closed.

I agree that OS X for Intel would be a last-ditch effort, but I believe that Apple is in a last-ditch situation.